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Saturday, 29 March 2014

March 2014 has been a killer month for me. Bought around 10 Henkei/United figures to complete my mold collection, few 3rd Party figures, and continuing my quest to complete Botcon 2007 Boxset, Bugbite, and Thundercracker. Now, only Dirge and Thrust to go!

On top of all that, an unexpected figure arrived at a local shop here where I almost cried due to the timing, LOL. Thus, I manage to burn a bigger hole in my wallet with Perfect Effect's PE-DX03 Warden, a homage to IDW Fortress Maximus.

Pic Credit : TFWiki

Fortress Maximus is no stranger in the Transformers universe. After his debut in G1's The Rebirth, Fortress Maximus became a regular in the franchise as himself, an iteration of himself or as characters having the same design as he does (Grand Maximus, Brave Maximus).

Fortress Maximus has a lot of backstories, depending on which continuity you're referring to. But for this review, I'll be taking IDW G1 continuity as my reference as Warden clearly homages that design.

Came to existence during the hard period of war, Fortress Maximus was portrayed differently in this continuity, well-known for his mass-killing of Decepticons, as opposed to a weary Autobots with pacifist nature that had seen too many battle.

Running a tight ship, Fortress Maximus is the warden (hence the name) that's in charge of Garrus-9, a penitentiary for both Autobots and Decepticons. And that itself make him a target by a lot of the inmates and the worst happened when the Decepticon forces lead by Overlord run down the prison and Fortress Maximus was almost rip to shred first by Overlord and then the angry prisoners. And it didn't end there, until Fortress Maximus was rescued by the Wreckers.

Pic Credit : TFWiki

Unlike in G1 cartoon where Fortress Maximus is a big robot in which Spike Witwicky form the head of Cerebros who in turn, becomes Fortress Maximus's head, IDW Fortress Maximus is a normal size robot that might just tower few others. This actually (if I'm not mistaken) roughly follows Marvel Comics G1 continuity where Fortress Maximus is a normal size robot (roughly the same as his other Headmasters group).

However, Fortress Maximus underwent a big reconstruction process to alter his size, making him twice the size of an average Transformers. With this increase in size, Fortress Maximus needed a new head to bridge the gap between his and Galen's (his Headmaster before Spike) size. And this is where Cerebros comes into the picture.

Wednesday, 19 March 2014

One of the things that I love about 3rd party releases is that most of them are random! Yes, there's a pattern where they focus more on releasing combiners (not to mention, the Headmasters and the Wreckers) but aside from that, fans mostly are surprised with their offering. And the fact that they are producing some obscure characters for the fans is most welcomed. Wonder how long would it take for Hasbro to release a PROPER Reflector?

After the release of the first 4 figures from their War Lord Beasticons set, Unique Toys, the successor of CHMS, decided to take a detour and release an obscure character (which previously was teased by iGear) from the famous 1986's Transformers The Movie, the Sharticons, dubbed UT-G02 Sharkies.

Pic Credit : TFWiki

Made their debut in 1986, Sharkticons are a group of shark-like (well, land-cyber-shark, if you will) soldiers for the Quintessons. Although, despite their name, I myself see more piranha in them rather than sharks. From the picture above, your first impression might not be too far off. The Sharkticons are basically fierce killing machine with almost zero intelligence. And they are big and round. In short, aside from their numbers and also giant razor-sharp teeth paired with those empty eyes, they are just walking potatoes.

The Sharkticons served as the executors for the Quintessons, killing any being sentenced by their masters. However, when it's Kup and Hot Rod's turn, the Sharkticons failed their mission. Making things worst, the Dinobots came to the duo's rescue and by Grimlock's order, turned against their master simply due to their nature of obeying the strongest one.

Pic Credit : TFWiki

Despite the name, Sharkticons were released under the Gnaw which kind of confused me. I can understand that maybe Hasbro wanted a character name for the toys instead of using 'Sharkticons' in general but I can't seem to find any reference to the name Gnaw until Dreamwave's 2003 Cold War comics, giving back story to Gnaw as one of the Sharkticons, who became attached to a young Autobots, Wheelie.

Sunday, 16 March 2014

For now, 2014 seems like a well-balanced year, with interesting releases from both HasTak and 3rd Party companies. There's still no sign of the Generations Deluxe Wave 4 here in Malaysia, kind of worrying; considering this won't be the first time I have to outsource some of the regular releases. We are lucky though, since the Wave 4 (if not mistaken) of Generations Voyager has already arrived.

Pic Credit : Web

Whirl....the weird character both in term of his design AND personality. Don't get me wrong Geewunner, I have nothing against his design, just calling a spade; a spade. Whirl is a member of the Wreckers, which recently given more spotlight in the Transformers world. Honestly, I think it's because of that spotlight that fans could have a chance to get our hands on an obscure characters like him (and not long after, Voyager Roadbuster).

Wreckers are well-known to be 'reckless', not abiding to most rules written. But Whirl take it to another level. None can determine whether Whirl is in fact insane OR he just believes that insanity makes an extremely effective weapon.

Thursday, 13 March 2014

This will be the first official review under TransMY Reviewers Community. The review is made possible with the help of our sponsor, X2OToys who was kind enough to provide me this figure.

http://x2otoys.com/

Perhaps one of the most memorable characters in Transformers universe. Despite making an appearance mostly in Generation 1 (and a few other homages of him in other series), he's a fan favorite. Making another appearance in the Dark Of the Moon, Shockwave's popularity now grows with the newer fans.

Pic Credit : Web

One of Megatron's most trusted generals, Shockwave was given the job to govern Cybertron as Megatron went on the mission to intercept an Autobot mission. The most loyal to the Decepticon's cause, Shockwave overseen all of the activities with logical, scientific mind which led to the evolution of Cybertron's technology, including the Space Bridge.

Pic Credit : Seibertron.com

This is not something that I would've guessed to be released but Custom Robot surprised me when they decided to release Revoltech-style Transformers characters. If I'm not mistaken, Not-Shockwave is their 2nd offering after Sonic (Not-Soundwave).

The idea behind this is to get few TransMY-ian to start up their own Transformers reviews on any platform (blog, youtube, etc) to help promote the group, the fandom and also themselves. Also, through this, hopefully we can groom and help each other to bring forth more reviewers (from Malaysia, especially)

Monday, 3 March 2014

One of the figures that I vowed to skip and never even considered before, Universe Cheetor. This changed, however, since my wife decided to start collecting the Neo-Beast Wars figures (thanks a lot, Rhinox and Rattrap!!)

Pic Credit : TFWiki

The young and enthusiast Maximal was never short on energon. Despite his good intent, Cheetor had few times caused problems to his teammates and almost leading them to the brink of destruction. All of this reminded me a lot of Hotrod in the 1986's Animated Movie.

Pic Credit : TFWiki

Among the initial crews of the Axalon that crash-landed on the 'mysterious planet', Cheetor quickly went on his way, after choosing a cheetah as his beast form, going on a run with others of his kind....sort of. This 'harmless' act brought him face-to-face with Waspinator and the other Predacons which resulted him being rescued by Optimus Primal. And that won't be the last....